Sannin
by bloodstained yinyang
Summary: A story of triplets separated at birth Sannin means Three people
1. Chapter 1

The Birth

_Darkness, slightly pulsating, warm and throbbing pleasantly. All was warm and comforting. Then the voices began to be heard from outside the warm place._

"_So it's agreed. We each take one and split up." the voice was female and somewhat pleasant._

"_Agreed. For their safety, they will be separated." The second voice was male, deep, and almost sarcastically sadistic._

"_W..wait... isn't that.. cruel? To never know they have siblings... please, we have to let them see each other, just once." The third voice was male as well, but very different-- a little nervous, but gentle._

"_They will hatch soon. We will stay here until then." _

_--_

_The wind whipped the hair of the female as she stared intently at the egg. It had been rocking for some time now, in the warm sands that had incubated it. Finally, a head burst through, the size of a clenched fist and serpentine. It extended its long neck, which was covered in what seemed like snakeskin. It had a golden color, rich and deep. It looked about, as though looking for something, its blurry vision barely making out shapes. Then a second head broke through, twin to the first, and they nuzzled each other in congratulations before setting about completing the task of hatching. The body emerged after much punching and kicking-- it was about the size of a large puppy, with a snaky tail the size of the necks. Its legs were short, and it had 2 draconic claws on toes, plus a dewclaw. It looked up, its blurry vision seeing a human face with long black hair before looking down again. As its vision cleared, it found itself staring into dark eyes in a serpentine head mirroring its own-- two, actually. It started a little, holding the other's gaze as it noticed the much darker coloration-- black as night without moon or stars. They stared at each other for some time before more cracking sounds revealed the presence of a third hatchling. As they turned to look, in unison, the third tumbled over its feet and rolled towards them. It was pure white, white as a blank page, which drew one's focus to its startlingly clear blue eyes. _

"_There. They've seen each other. We should seperate." came the female voice, from behind the gold._

"_They need names." came the gentler male voice, from near the white._

"_Keh." snorted the harsher male, from near the black._

"_Alright... Daria and Arleen." The female again, touching the heads of the gold._

"_Idiot. Don't you know anything? You don't name each head, the whole beast gets one name." came the more sarcastic voice._

"_Then Darline. I'd like to see you do better!"_

_After a long pause came an intreagued hum. "Maxim. I'll name my son Maxim." The black received an affectionate pat._

"_And you? What will you name your son?" _

"_...I've always liked the name Tyler." came the gentle voice, after a moment's consideration. The gold-- Darline-- found herself scooped up in warm arms. _

"_Alright. Since obviously only one of us is welcome in Konoha, I'll retire to my family dwelling. I suggest you do the same, Zerus." came the female voice. "We'll impliment the disguise there."_

"_What! We won't know what they look like!" protested the gentle voice._

"_Fool. They're not as helpless as newborn humans. See how alert they are! They'd remember."_

"_As though we could really keep them apart if we tried." sighed the female. She turned, and Darline lost sight of her brothers, her new mother between her and them. And thus it stayed for a very long time._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

"HIYAH!"

The tan sole of he foot smashed through the wooden board, and it quickly lowered to the ground, revealing the girl. Her green hair was short and her face and ears pointed, pixie-like; her hair was kept out of her face by a blue bandanna. Her eyes were golden and large, though narrowed at the moment while her teammates applauded. The girl was twelve, and a ninja-in-training in the hidden village of Konoha, and she had just broken a board with her booted foot. Her teacher smiled at her, while her two companions scowled and muttered "showoff".

Uchiha Elphaba paid no attention to their jealousy. She had bigger fish to fry. She once more looked over her teammates: a blond female with her hair in a ponytail and blue eyes, and a male with a mop of brown hair, tall and gangly. They had been working together a week and already she had forgotten their names; they were of no importance to her. Once more she wished she could have been partnered with her cousin Itachi, but of course, he paid as little attention to her as she did to her teammates-- Aricke? Eric? And T-something... Tamora? No matter. Itachi paid no attention to her because she was only his cousin, and a distant one at that-- and besides, her golden eyes were clearly not Sharingan in nature, so why bother? The thought made the familiar anger well up inside her, as she pictured the smirking genious-- and at the same time she bowed and accepted the critiques of her instructor on her technique. She had always been able to concentrate on two things at once, and anyone who couldn't keep up wasn't worth bothering about anyway.

"Tamaly, now you. Remember, we want to sculpt the blow using our chakra, so we make a clean break--"

"As though cut by a knife. I know, sensei." Tamaly slid her right foot back into balancing position, looking at the next board. Quick as a flash, and silently, her foot slid forward, but did nto connect with the board; however, the board split in two as neatly as thogh it had been cut by a laser, with a small flash of chakra. Elphie scowled. "Now who's showing off?" she muttered to herself, but the other, the boy, was already hugging Tamaly in excitement, and the teacher was smiling and nodding.

After the training session, Elphie did not follow her teammates out for a celebratory bowl of ramen. Instead, she went to the nearby woods, heading for her favorite clearing. In the late afternoon, the trees cast dappled sunlight and shadow on the path and forest floor, and a breeze stirred the trees providing a soft, comforting husssshh, husshhh of white noise in the background as hundreds of thousands of leaves slid past each other. Elphie walked silently, as her mother had taught her, so as not to disturb the wildlife in the woods: hundreds of mating insects and others, not so lucky, buzzing about in the warm summer air looking for mates; rabbits hiding, trembling, under bushes; birds chirping in the treetops, unseen, calling to one another "Intruder! Intruder!", "Mate with me, pretty avian maiden!", and "What a fine afternoon!"; ants busily tracing the same paths over and over, looking for new scraps of food on the same old routes; a million different creatures that make the quiet forest teem with as much life as the noisy classroom, and more, much more.

She sat herself up on a log, feeling its rough bark, the uneven surface beneath her. She sat on that log, hearing and feeling a hundred different rhythms of life, pulsing and moving around her, until a small tug in the pattern alerted her to it's presence: The Fox. Silently, she looked at it, as she had every day for the past month; she remained still, and the fox remained still, for a good half an hour, taking in each other's presences. The fox was magnificent, red and small, with amber eyes that seemed to Elphie no less intelligent than her own. Animals had always treated her strangely; pet dogs would growl at her, but cats seemed drawn to her for caresses. Each animal had its own response to her, but one thing was in common: while she was in a room, animals ignored everyone else. This fox was different-- it was wild, not tamed, so its ears would often in the beginning flick backwards and it would bound away, hearing some signal Elphie could not comprehend. Yet after months of sitting, afternoon after afternoon, she, too, was becoming aware of the secret signals of the forest: the slight snapping of twigs that would alert the fox and her that one of her noisier classmates was approaching, the change in birdsong when the fox approached, and a million other natural clues.

Today, she heard none of these clues, and the fox began to walk towards her, a few hesitant steps. She slowly twitched, causing the fox to tense; when she did not move again, it relaxed. Slowly, inch by inch, she shifted, lowering herself and holding her hand out to the fox. She was vaguely aware that if anyone else tried this the fox would have left an hour ago, but...

Then she heard the crunch, and the fox was gone. Irritated, she stood, whirling to turn on the intruder-- and stopped, as she felt herself falling into the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.


End file.
